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Clinton ...smart? Give me a freakin break!! Crafty...maybe...Smart..no way. He is a dumb ass. |
Posted on 12/08/2002 2:40:24 PM PST by Chi-townChief
Ultra-partisan Republicans hate President Clinton. They hate the memory of President Kennedy almost as much. The men have a lot in common — smart, articulate, cool, educated at Harvard, both pointy-headed policy wonks, both charming, witty liberals.
So the recent "revelations" about Kennedy's health (which reveal little that was not already known) have caused them great delight. Bushite speechwriter Peggy Noonan (the "thousand points of light" woman) chortled gleefully in the Wall Street Journal that if the media in 1960 had focused on the qualifications of a president they way they do now, Kennedy would never have been elected.
And most of us would either be dead or would never have been born.
Read the transcripts of the tapes from those days in October 1962. Or read the books that have been written about the Cuban missile crisis. Almost at the end of the debate about what to do, there was virtually unanimous agreement that we had to bomb the Russian bases in Cuba. Only the president resisted. What will happen, he demanded, when the first Russian soldier dies? That was perhaps the most decisive moment in a century of American history.
The same men who later would involve us in the Vietnam War were ready to involve us in what would certainly have been a nuclear exchange with the Soviets. The difference in the two situations is that Kennedy resisted the advice of the "best and the brightest," and Lyndon Johnson did not.
This single decision earned Kennedy a place among the very greatest presidents of American history, no matter how short his administration was. The terrible pain he suffered and the incredible number of pills he swallowed every day did not prevent him from keeping his head when all the others around him were losing theirs. Perhaps he would not have lived to finish a second term. That does not matter. He lived long enough to save millions of lives, both American and Russian.
Equally beside the point were his seemingly endless love affairs. One does not admire his addiction to sex. One merely deems it irrelevant. Does Noonan really think that Richard Nixon would have had the moral courage not to launch a war with Russia in October 1962?
Ah, but he and his staff did not tell the truth about this health. Did not Kennedy lie about his back? It was a lie only if you assume that the public (which means the press) has a right to ask those questions. It is not self-evident that they do.
The personal life of the president is not pertinent to his ability to exercise his office, neither his sexual escapades nor his health. Noonan is right: The prying eyes of the investigative media would have defeated John Kennedy — and Franklin Roosevelt, too, for that matter. A paralyzed polio victim and a man with Addison's disease, both of them with records of marital infidelity, should never had made it to the White House. However, there is nothing to prevent the election of men who, like Nixon and Johnson, were emotional and psychological wrecks.
Under the new set of "rules," future candidates with serious physical ailments are automatically disqualified. Does this make the United States safer? One wonders what kind of moral and healthy creep will be sitting in the Oval Office when the next dangerous crisis comes down the pike.
The Constitution specifies only that a president must be born in the United States and be over 35. Better that we do not expand the qualifications to include other characteristics. Obvious incompetence and blatant corruption in previous offices are legitimate matters for debate. So are policy positions and the kind of staff he is likely to gather. So too are his intelligence, which is not necessarily the same as his IQ. His love affairs, his military record, his smoking pot (inhaled or not) are not proper matters for debate.
However, the new rules are in place, and the media will surely enforce them. We will have physically healthy and virtuous presidents. Will the United States be better off because our leaders are admirable role models?
Think back to those 13 days in October before you make your decision to choose virtue over competence.
Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, author and sociologist. He teaches at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona. His column on political, church and social issues appears each Sunday in the Daily Southtown. Father Greeley's e-mail address is Agreel@aol.com, and his home page, which includes homilies for every Sunday, is www.agreeley.com.
Father Greeley goes way over the top once again in his senile way. If Nixon had won in '60, he probably would have had the brains and "moral courage" NOT to stumble into the Missile Crisis or Vietnam for that matter.
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Clinton ...smart? Give me a freakin break!! Crafty...maybe...Smart..no way. He is a dumb ass. |
I can't believe Greeley asked this question with a straight face.
Russia blinked when challenged by Kennedy. If Kennedy had followed the advice of his generals, the Cold War might have ended a hell of a lot earlier.
BTW, his hero Clinton didn't go to Harvard like his other hero JFK. The Boy President polished apples at Yale.
Clinton graduated from Yale Law School, not Harvard.
Clinton went to Georgetown and Yale, not Harvard. By today's standards, JFK was a conservative not a liberal -- and Clinton doesn't have any standards.
The Russians had longer range missiles than we did. Theirs could come over the North Poll and hit the northern third of the USA. They Soviet Union could Nuke Boston, NewYork Cleveland Detroit and Chicago. They could not hit Atlanta Miami and Dallas.
The Russians were hoping to put so much pressure on West Germany that they would make us take our missiles out of Germany. But that did not solve the propblem of our missiles in Turkey.
So the Russians started to put missiles in Cuba. If they succeeded they could cover all the USA. But if it came to a show down, they would agree to remove their missiles from Cuba in Exchange for our Missiles being removed from Turkey. That is how the cuban missile crisis was resolved. It was victory for the Russians and a Defeat for American. The cuban missile crisis was resolved when we agreed to remover our Turkey based missiles aimed at the soviet Union and they Soviets agreed to remove their missiles aimed at us from Cuba. That can best be called a tie. But since we had had missiles in turkey for years, it seemt to me it was a defeat.
The Russians ended up with missiles that could hit all of our industry at the time and most of our population. We had them in our sights only as long as the Germans allowed us to keep them in Germany. There were many German peacenik demonstrations in Germany, France, and England. The argument made to Europeans was that all our missiles did for Europe was make them a target for Russian Missiles. It was a close thing but we kept our missiles in Germany over the objections of Many Germans.
As far as Nixon was concerned, had hew won in 1960 he would have commited our air force to the invasion of Cuba by the Cuban Freedom Fighters. Ike had trained cuban refugees in the USA to overthrow Castro. Kennedy chickened out before the cuban missile crisis and refused to give the invaders air cover. All the Freedom fighters were killed and Castro stayed in power. That gave the Soviets the idea of either getting their missiles permanently in Cuba or our missiles out of Turkey.
Kennedy who was a military officer claimed to not know a sea attack could not succeed with out air superiority. He was a military officer,he was just a candy butted president scared of Russia.
If Nixon had stayed in office he would have done the invasion of Cuba as Eisenhower planned with full US air cover, and Castro would have been dead with the commnist government of Cuba. Communists would have been long gone from Cuba, There could have been no Cuban missile crisis. The Russians would have had no way to put missiles in Cuba. It would have been a democracy allied with the USA.
That is what Kennedy gave us .. Double defeats at the hand of the Soviet Union. By the time LBJ was done we had given them another victory in Viet Nam.
Nixon reversed that terrible situation by compromising China. That left the Russians with a Chinese border to worry about and off our back for a decade.
Reagan started the arms race and the Russians went broke trying to keep up.
Nixon and Reagan were the only ones to ever best the Soviet union. The Soviet Union defeated Kennedy and LBJ.
And whoremongers. Don't forget whoremongers.
As to Bill Clinton, we still haven't seen what's in his medical record. The left is outraged that people like Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Dick Chaney, Strom Thurmond, etc. hold office and complain that their health concerns should have excluded them from office.
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It was at this point where I vomited quite violently on my keyboard and couldn't read anymore. |
I may try to get through this later after I take said keyboard to the carwash.
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Kruschev got everything he wanted out of the crisis.
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Right. Bush has got us into financing an invasion of the U. S. over the Southern borders. With Bush's brilliance Mexico will accomplish what the Soviets were unable to do.
The whole "crisis" was a fraud. Does anybody remember the only ship that was "searched" by our naval forces?
Try the JOSEPH KENNEDY!
This from a Catholic priest?
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